D&D (2024) How to simply balance ranged weapons.

[James Gasik]

First, DM's need to start enforcing the soft cover rule for shooting at people with other people in front of them; Archery style is meant to remove this penalty, but too often, it's just a +2 bonus to hit. Second, Archery style needs to be rewritten to say "reduce penalties due to cover by 2".

*The third thing would be to remove Sharpshooter as a Feat, but the playtest seems to be doing that already, so instead:

Thirdly, make it so that ranged weapons and only add Dexterity to damage within 30 feet of the target, and make using a ranged attack (including ranged spell attacks) in melee provoke attacks of opportunity.

Fourth, make Crossbow Expert only work with crossbows. Crossbows have been underwhelming throughout so much of D&D's history I'm fine with them getting a perk, lol. At this point, you can remove OA's for "point blank" crossbow shots as well, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[tetrasodium]

Hm. In reality IME 5e archers are typically attacking from more like 30' not 150'+. The game is played mostly in dungeons, after all.

That would create multiple problems & is avoiding the problem that you yourself noted earlier...

Yes, I think characters are too slow relative to attack rate. Doubling everyone's movement (perhaps through some special Actions like 'sprint' and 'charge' that you can't use while shooting) would help fix that.

Ranged attack ranges are dramatically overinflated for d&d for this very reason. Both ranged weapons & ranged spells should be retuned to be more in line with the distances the game is actually designed for & played at. Inflating the ranges as we have now or extending move speeds to match them would only serve to raise the bar for how much work that the GM needs to do in order to prepare encounters.

Using standard 5ft squares there should be nothing that can hit any point on a 23x26() chessex battlemat (92x130ft)& definitely not with a 34x48 megamat (170x240ft). Yet there are multiple things that meet or exceed those values significantly. Even if you limit the scope to only starting equipment many characters can enter the game trivially ble to hit any point on a the regular mat & quite a few who can do the same with the giant one before gaining even a single item coin or point of experience. With the rise of VTTs this is even more critical for oned&d to course correct on because the gm can no longer just say "Yea the mat isn't big enough for your plan" & players can push the dm to show everything

 

[payn]

First, DM's need to start enforcing the soft cover rule for shooting at people with other people in front of them; Archery style is meant to remove this penalty, but too often, it's just a +2 bonus to hit. Second, Archery style needs to be rewritten to say "reduce penalties due to cover by 2".

*The third thing would be to remove Sharpshooter as a Feat, but the playtest seems to be doing that already, so instead:

Thirdly, make it so that ranged weapons and only add Dexterity to damage within 30 feet of the target, and make using a ranged attack (including ranged spell attacks) in melee provoke attacks of opportunity.

Fourth, make Crossbow Expert only work with crossbows. Crossbows have been underwhelming throughout so much of D&D's history I'm fine with them getting a perk, lol. At this point, you can remove OA's for "point blank" crossbow shots as well, as far as I'm concerned.

I think we got a winner here.

 

[Clint_L]

No, seriously, why are we talking about nerfing ranged attacks? The classes that primarily use ranged attacks, rangers and rogues, are widely considered weaker classes. They need a damage decrease? I'm not seeing a problem with ranged damage being good; it keeps those guys viable.

 

[James Gasik]

No, seriously, why are we talking about nerfing ranged attacks? The classes that primarily use ranged attacks, rangers and rogues, are widely considered weaker classes. They need a damage decrease? I'm not seeing a problem with ranged damage being good; it keeps those guys viable.

The argument is that it's safer to be a ranged damage dealer than a melee damage dealer. You can easily build a character who can deal nearly as much damage as a melee guy, use Dexterity as your primary ability score instead of Strength (YMMV, but many people see this as an advantage), have close to the same AC and durability as a front liner, but can more easily elude melee attacks, have greater ability to select targets in combat, and be less likely to deal with the consequences of being in melee, such as reaction counterattacks, damaging auras, enemies that harm you for attacking them due to being on fire or covered in acid, deathsplosions (enemies who blow up upon demise), etc., etc..

Depending on monster choices, being a melee character can be quite miserable. Combat starts, you might have to dash or wait for enemies to close to you, while the archer is picking off whatever target they like. People like to talk about the Monk's mobility, for example, and how they can rush to the back line, but an archer build can start attacking the back row the instant they see an enemy.

Add to that the fact that, due to improper use of soft cover, most archers get a +2 bonus to hit over everyone else, making their attacks much less likely to miss. Then there are other considerations, like Rogues being able to inflict their full sneak attack damage at range, or Battlemasters dropping Maneuvers on distant foes, keeping them from being able to act effectively.

And with Crossbow Expert, you can basically be a switch hitter, since you don't particularly care if someone actually does close with you, since you can still keep pumping out damage without penalty (or alternately, a Rogue can just bonus action Disengage).

 

[GMMichael]

No, seriously, why are we talking about nerfing ranged attacks? . . .

Because the idea of one weapon being inherently better than another is unacceptable to some people. Or because players of melee characters have some sort of bias against non-melee characters?

I always thought that a limited number of arrows would keep archers in check.

 

[MGibster]

I haven't found ranged attacks to be particularly difficult to deal with in D&D for the part part. As we use miniatures, the size of the map kind of determins the size of our fighting area. Another thing to consider is the difference between theoretical range and practical range. I have a rifle that has an effective range of about 1,000 meters in the hands of skilled shooter. Where I typically hunt, I'll never see a deer from 1,000 meters away because I'm in a wooded area. I think 150 meters is the absolute farthest I've ever shot at a deer (20 meters was the closest and I felt a little bad about that). So just because a PC has a theoretical range of 600 doesn't mean he's going to have a 600 foot shot.

 

[James Gasik]

Because the idea of one weapon being inherently better than another is unacceptable to some people. Or because players of melee characters have some sort of bias against non-melee characters?

I always thought that a limited number of arrows would keep archers in check.

Many groups don't really track ammunition (at least, that's been my experience with 5e) and even if they do, arrows don't really cost much nor do they weigh a lot, so unless you're using the Encumbrance variant, it's easy to load up on arrows between adventures, as 5e treasure rules give you fairly liberal wealth.

Now granted, in a game where you don't have easy access to a base, this might become a problem. Personally, I haven't bothered to track ammunition since 4e, since I don't particularly see the point of letting magic users throw cantrip attacks all day long, and taxing a guy small amounts of gold to use a bow; instead I use something like lifestyle expenses and just deduct a small portion of earned treasure to cover incidentals like this just to keep the game rolling. I've found if you enforce stuff like rations and ammunition, players will just find some way to end run around anything they find obnoxious anyways, so it's easier to just cut out the middleman (Note: I tell my players I'm doing this and they haven't complained).

So from my perspective, I'd rather adjust the mechanical balance then relying on money and making it a nuisance for the players to play the game. YMMV, of course.

 

[James Gasik]

I haven't found ranged attacks to be particularly difficult to deal with in D&D for the part part. As we use miniatures, the size of the map kind of determins the size of our fighting area. Another thing to consider is the difference between theoretical range and practical range. I have a rifle that has an effective range of about 1,000 meters in the hands of skilled shooter. Where I typically hunt, I'll never see a deer from 1,000 meters away because I'm in a wooded area. I think 150 meters is the absolute farthest I've ever shot at a deer (20 meters was the closest and I felt a little bad about that). So just because a PC has a theoretical range of 600 doesn't mean he's going to have a 600 foot shot.

This is an often overlooked aspect of ranged attacks in the open world; you do need to be able to see the target to shoot at it. But even in a dungeon or on a small battlemap, there are many advantages to being able to deal damage at range as opposed to melee, that, while certainly realistic, can seem a bit unfair to melee specialists, who gain less of an advantage for the tradeoff.

 

[Amrûnril]

No, seriously, why are we talking about nerfing ranged attacks? The classes that primarily use ranged attacks, rangers and rogues, are widely considered weaker classes. They need a damage decrease? I'm not seeing a problem with ranged damage being good; it keeps those guys viable.

Melee and ranged weapons are reasonably balanced in a dungeon delving context. In a high visibility outdoor encounter, though, a melee-focused combatant is utterly helpless against a range-focused combatant of comparable level or CR.

Absent terrain/visibility restrictions, a melee warrior using the dash action will need 20 rounds to close with a longbow wielder stepping backwards while firing. That may be an extreme case, but having to endure even half a dozen rounds of fire, even with partial cover intermittently available, is a sufficient obstacle that, under 5e rules, no one in their right mind would come to an outdoor battle armed primarily with a melee weapon. Both balance considerations and historical practice, though, suggest that it should be entirely plausible for a warrior with a shield and spear to close with an archer.

Outdoor combat may not be the primary focus of D&D, but neither is it a rare enough scenario that it's alright for it to break game balance to this degree.